So it looks like the NYTimes will be doing a piece on Marshall Manson and Wal-Mart tomorrow. Says Marquette Warrior:

New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro is working on a story about the fact that public relations people working for the giant retailer Wal-Mart have been feeding news tips and information to sympathetic bloggers around the country.
…
Barbaro has apparently noticed that similar stories concerning Wal-Mart have appeared roughly simultaneously in recent months. In some cases, bloggers on the list simply cut and pasted information in the e-mails into their blog posts.

Let me first say that I am absolutely appalled that an employee of a public relations firm would engage in such shameless… public relations. I mean, clearly there was a threat implied in Marshall sending out interesting news stories to an audience that had written about Wal-Mart in the past. If these bloggers didn’t bow to the whim of the mighty Wal-Mart, those low prices might have falled like a guillotine on their pajama-clad necks. These poor bloggers were pressured to write about Wal-Mart, otherwise the ghost of Sam Walton would have haunted their dreams (or something).

Look, I too received those emails from Marshall. Apparently I didn’t write enough about Wal-Mart to be interviewed by the Times (although I’m hoping Barbaro will interview me for the inevitable “Who is Marshall Manson” piece). Virtually everyone who received these emails says they either a) were interested in the story and blogged about it or b) weren’t interested and didn’t blog about it. There’s no suggestion that Marshall was trying to put words in the mouths of bloggers or anything like that.

This seems like such a weird story. I guess we’ll have to wait to see what the angle is, but if it’s “a PR guy is using blogs to try as a PR tool”, I’ll be the guy giggling into my beer.

Cam adds: Interesting speculation by Daniel M. Harrison at Blogcritics, suggesting the reason behind Barbaro’s piece is jealousy of the bloggers at what they mean for journalists. Could be, although I’m not discounting a hatred of Wal-Mart as well.

Of course, Daniel’s piece leaves out the most important piece of speculation… will the Times story references “On Tap”?

Marshall: Well, the New York Times piece that Cam was anticipating is now online. Shockingly, it does not mention On Tap. (Hint: Google my name. Note the first listing.) For the moment, I need to withhold comment about the substance of the story. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sound off at some point, but in the meantime, pull up a stool and join in. What do you think of the Times story?

Cam: First of all, the next time the NYTimes decides you’ve done something scandalous Marshall… it better a) get this blog linked and b) involve something a bit sexier than press releases and bloggers. You’re a baseball fan… go do steroids or something.

Secondly, why is it every article about blogs must feature a quote from Glenn Reynolds, even if he has nothing to do with the story. In an article that takes bloggers to task for being lazy, it’s a little ironic that the Times reporter went straight to Glenn for good quote (A subsection of my secondly: I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the Times reporter didn’t realize Marshall blogs here. The Hotline blog figured it out yesterday, but the Times can’t? The old grey mare, she ain’t what she used to be).

Thirdly, what the heck is the point of this story? Look at the lede:

Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. “All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills,” he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell’s Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart’s public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.

So unless the lede is buried, it’s earth shattering news that a) sometimes bloggers cut and paste from their sources and b) Wal-Mart’s hired effective PR folks. Hmmm… maybe they did bury the lede. Let’s look at the last sentence.

Mr. Reynolds of Instapundit.com said he recently was invited to Wal-Mart’s offices but declined. “Bentonville, Arkansas,” he said, “is not my idea of a fun destination.”

Hmmm. Snide comment directed at either Wal-Mart, Arkansas, or possibly both. Perhaps that’s the real point to the story.

I’ve got more thoughts, but I have to make an early morning run to the airport. More later.

Jim: It figures that the Times would wait until I was in Istanbul and offline for a long weekend before taking on my buddy.

There’s a real story hidden somewhere within this article. A little while back, I wrote about the “permanent campaign” atmosphere of what Marshall and the folks at Edelman were doing on behalf of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s critics operate like a never-ending political campaign, with attack ads, press releases, p.r. stunts, Michael-Moore style attack-documentaries, etc.; the big store has fought back using the same tactics, using some political pros - well beyond Marshall; I don’t think he’ll be offended when I say they’re graybeards with decades of political experience.

The tactics of our never-let-up, never-retreat “war room” political world have now entered corporate communications; you can argue that this is good or bad, but it represents a dramatic change from just a few years back.

That’s a story. However, the Times looks at these circumstances and finds the story it wants to find: “Ah-ha! A slick PR man is manipulating the bloggers!” The reporter, er, reports is not the right word… he posits:

…the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers.

Ah, the old, “raises questions” trope. By “raises questions,” the reporter neglects to add, “raises questions… by me.” “Because I want there to be a story here.” I’m surprised it wasn’t “raises troubling questions” or “raises serious concerns at a time of heightened tensions” or some other phrase spat out by the New York Times Cliché-o-Matic 2000.

Further along, the reporter, desperately flailing for a story, some controversy, something to justify the 1,663 words about the shocking, stunning news that a pr guy who sends press releases and information to bloggers, declares:

But some bloggers are also defensive about their contacts with Wal-Mart. When they learned that The New York Times was looking at how they were using information from the retailer, several blog gers posted items challenging The Times’s article before it had appeared. One blog, Iowa Voice, run by Mr. Pickrell, pleads for advertisers to buy space on the blog in anticipation of more traffic because of the article.

Gee, I cannot imagine why bloggers would believe that the New York Times was looking to run a hit piece on bloggers. I cannot imagine why bloggers would think that the New York Times reporting would be inaccurate, or why…
Look for the Jayson Blair New York Times Seal of Approval™!

Er, yeah. Where was I?

Look, we all know Marshall is “charming and sexy,” and naturally, no blogger can resist the power of his wiles. We can only be glad that he’s using his awesome manipulative powers to perform Jedi Mind Tricks on bloggers, forcing them to parrot his rhetoric about Everyday Low Prices, instead of using them for evil.

Indeed, this New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro should be commended for insisting that every writer, be they a mere pajama-clad blogger or a reporter at the Paper of Record disclose where they get their information and story ideas.

So, Barbaro, where did you get the idea for this story? I sure hope you didn’t get tipped off to this by one of Wal-Mart’s critics.

Jim: One other observation. When NRANews.com started up, the Times did a story, about the “disturbing questions” raised by Cam and his work, insinuating that he would be rooting for school shootings and gun deaths and killing Bambi’s mother, etc. We’ve seen the Times go to work on Marshall now.

All I can say is, boy, my book had better get trashed this summer, or I’m gonna feel left out.

Cam: I’m glad to see Glenn has a sense of humor. At least I think he does. We love you Instamaster… go buy his book before he puts out a hit on us!!!